a roll?

I didn’t think I would ever buy a jelly roll, which if you don’t know are 2.5 in strips of fabric of all the fabrics in a given fabric line all rolled up into a bundle. If you’re a fabric lover, it does look sweet and delicious, like the pastry it’s named after. Moda invented the jellyroll method of fabric packaging and has copyright on the name. The reason I didn’t think I’d ever buy one is that it’s too much like a kit. One of the things I like best about quilting is mixing fabrics and finding interesting combinations. Making a quilt from a roll would seem to take some of that creativity away, particularly if I were also making a pattern by the same company. It would be almost like making a doll designed to look licensed character—if I had really good execution, it might look just like the picture on the box in the end, but there would be no “me” in it.

OK, but I did buy one (two), some months ago, and now I’m making a quilt with it. Why make the jump? There are some fabric lines for which I would really like to have a little piece of each fabric. (Can you imagine if Mendocino was available like this, or maybe as a layer cake? Not Moda, though. ) I am such a fan of Lecien’s Minny Muu fabrics that when I saw them all rolled up and sorted by color like this, I really just couldn’t resist. I love them all, every tiny little mousey print of them. And, the other thing that made me go roll was that when browsing the craft section at Barnes, I found a book of jellyroll patterns that looked really good—Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott. I think a lot of jellyroll patterns seem to be straining—trying to balance out a roll that just might not have it, but these look great. Plus, with my favorite pattern in the book, I can stretch my jelly roll to make a bed quilt.

I’ll let you know how the quilt goes (of course). If you’re looking for more perspectives on the jellyroll, Jan at Bemused just did a post on buying her first jellyroll, and the comments have a lot of really great pros and cons.

So did you catch that I said that Moda does all the jellyrolls, but then mine is Lecien fabric? Right. Lecien’s is actually called a Sushi Roll, and I’m guessing that since they want to be careful not to stomp on Moda’s copyright, the strips are 2.75 in. instead of 2.5 inches. This is a bit annoying because it means I have to re-work all the math in my quilt, bu it’s OK—I’m not afraid of math. Plus, that makes it more mine, right?